Shootings Northern Ireland

Two gunmen believed to be Protestant extremists opened fire with semi-automatic weapons in a crowded bar patronized by Roman Catholics on Sunday, killing three men and wounding nine others, police said. "Everybody was trying to dive for cover, but there was just no chance for some," one survivor said. Father Anthony Alexander, a Catholic priest who was called to the scene, said: "It was horrific, terrible. There were bodies and injured everywhere--blood and broken glass."

Tensions escalated in Northern Ireland after a man was injured in a shooting and 20 homes were attacked after more than a week of violence linked to a feud between Protestant guerrillas. Politicians said the fledgling home-rule government will not be at risk unless Roman Catholic republican groups are drawn into the violence, which has in the past few days been confined to Protestant groups.

A Protestant extremist hurled grenades and fired a pistol into a large crowd of Roman Catholic mourners Wednesday, killing three people, wounding 68 and turning the funeral of three Irish Republican Army members into chaos and panic. The attacker, identified as Michael Stone, from a Protestant section of the city, was eventually chased down by enraged mourners and badly beaten before law officers intervened at gunpoint to arrest him.

A gunman killed two Protestant militants in one of a series of shooting and arson attacks linked to a deepening turf war among Northern Ireland's pro-British "loyalist" gangs. About 100 British soldiers were deployed in the most violent areas of Belfast, the provincial capital, to back up police. Friends of one of the slain men, a leading member of the Ulster Defense Assn., blamed the rival Ulster Volunteer Force and vowed revenge.

British soldiers ambushed and killed three Irish Republican Army guerrillas in this County Tyrone village early Monday as the multi-party initiative to forge a new political future for Northern Ireland continued to founder amid a dramatic escalation in violence.

The Irish Republican Army shot a 66-year-old woman at her home Friday night, then apologized, saying it had meant to kill a police officer. Police said one or more gunmen fired several shots through a window in Armagh, striking the woman in the chest and leg. The victim, who was not identified, was hospitalized in serious condition Saturday.

The British government has blocked a bid by the Northern Ireland families of three IRA guerrillas shot to death by British commandos in Gibraltar two years ago to take legal action over the killings. The relatives had sought to claim damages from the British Defense Ministry for what they said were unlawful killings of the three Irish Republican Army activists. The three were slain in March, 1988, by British commandos who believed they were about to set off a car bomb.

Protestant extremists Friday shot and seriously wounded a leading trade-union official working to stamp out sectarianism in Northern Ireland. The outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters admitted responsibility for shooting Pearse McKenna as he walked toward a Belfast bakery. Police said he was in serious but stable condition. The Transport Union called the attack sectarian and said McKenna had been working hard to improve conditions for workers, both Catholic and Protestant.

A series of attacks by Irish Republican Army terrorists killed two people and wounded 24 others in a blitz against British-backed security forces in Northern Ireland, police said. What apparently was a land mine blew up a military vehicle in County Tyrone, wounding six part-time soldiers; a bomb exploded under a car in Lisburn, killing a policeman and wounding 18 people, and a gunman killed a part-time soldier in front of his wife and baby daughter in Belfast, police said.

A leading Protestant politician in Northern Ireland was shot and wounded in front of his 11-year-old daughter, an attack that police feared might set off a new wave of violence in the troubled British province. David Calvert, 40, identified as a senior member of the Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, was shot by two men as he and his daughter left the dress shop he owns in Lurgan, 25 miles west of Belfast.

An anti-British gang opposed to Northern Ireland's peace talks claimed responsibility Saturday for the shooting death of a retired policeman. It made no attempt to justify the killing. In a statement to the BBC in this city, the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army said it had killed Cyril Stewart, 52, who retired last year after suffering a heart attack. The INLA gave no explanation for Friday's shooting outside a supermarket in Armagh, 40 miles southwest of here.

Masked gunmen killed two friends--one a Roman Catholic, the other Protestant--and wounded three others at a pub in Poyntzpass, 25 miles south of Belfast, the capital. No one claimed responsibility, but politicians and the province's police commander blamed Protestant extremists out to undermine ongoing peace talks. Two men entered the Catholic-owned Railway Bar and opened fire, killing Damien Trainor, 25, and his Protestant friend, Philip Allen, 34.

One man was killed and five others were injured when suspected Protestant gunmen attacked a Northern Ireland bar packed with Roman Catholics celebrating New Year's Eve, police said today. The killing, the third in the British-ruled province in five days, fueled fears of a new cycle of sectarian slayings and dashed hopes of an early peace deal. "It has all the hallmarks of a sectarian shooting incident," a senior police detective said.

Gunmen wounded three British soldiers and two police officers at a checkpoint in north Belfast, police said, in an attack on the eve of Protestant marches throughout the province. Hospital official said none of the injuries was life-threatening. Residents of the Catholic enclave of Ardoyne said attackers fired about 20 shots and threw a grenade at the security forces before speeding away.

A police officer was seriously wounded by a gunman in Northern Ireland on Thursday, ending hopes that the Irish Republican Army would announce a cease-fire before British national elections May 1. The shooting in Londonderry sparked fears among analysts that it might reignite full-scale sectarian warfare between Catholic republicans and Protestant loyalists in the angrily divided British province.

The Irish Republican Army shot a 66-year-old woman at her home Friday night, then apologized, saying it had meant to kill a police officer. Police said one or more gunmen fired several shots through a window in Armagh, striking the woman in the chest and leg. The victim, who was not identified, was hospitalized in serious condition Saturday.

A Protestant teen-ager was shot to death Monday night and rioting pro-IRA youths went on a rampage across Belfast after British undercover commandos killed four Irish Republican Army gunmen in Northern Ireland. The 17-year-old was shot to death while working in a video store. A renegade group called the Irish People's Liberation Organization said it was responsible for the killing.

Protestant extremists raked a crowded betting shop with gunfire Wednesday, killing five people and wounding nine others in what they called revenge for IRA violence. The attack on the Roman Catholic gamblers raised the number of dead in political and sectarian violence to 12 this week, one of the grimmest in the province in years. The Ulster Freedom Fighters, a Protestant group that targets Catholics, said it mounted the attack in what it called "one of the IRA's most active areas."